Re: The point of Oracle certification

Sted Alana wrote:

> > > What is the point of Oracle certifications?
> >
> > Make more money for Oracle.
>
> Bastards :)
>
> > > and will become redundant in years. For example, a person who is Oracle
> 8i
> > > certified is now out of date because of the release of Oracle 9i.
> >
> > That's the miopia of the whole thing: what people are getting certified
> > in is a version of software, not the technology itself.
> >
> > IOW, totally worthless in an industry where software version lifes are
> > measured in months.
>
> myopia? I agree with you........ totally worthless!
>
> > >
> > > Comments welcomed, by all means.
> > >
> >
> > There will be heaps I'm sure, if everyone isn't already sick of it...
>
> In spite of what I said, are there any Oracle certifications even worth
> considering.

Depends on your criteria. If you expect any certification to get you a job ... no. If you expect it to teach you what you need to know to be competent then I would recommend you look at the many major universities that have Oracle programs designed to teach skills ... rather than teach how to pass a test.

The one I teach at the University of Washington, for example, does not use a single PowerPoint slide. And those that have passed it, which is not a trivial matter, have been immediately employable as Oracle developers. In the last year students have been able to find jobs at the City of Seattle, Boeing Commercial Airplane Group, Weyerhauser, and a number of other large organizations.

The secret to finding a good program, in my estimation, is as follows:

1. The instruction consists of real work and not a slide show.
2. The instructor writes code on the fly and does not play the Ctrl-C / Ctrl-V game so that mistakes are made and students learn the common mistakes and their resolution (I don't believe anyone learns Oracle from watching everything done perfectly).
3. The data supplied by the instructor for classroom examples is as corrupt as that in the real world.
4. The instructor is an actual working developer/DBA and not someone just teaching the contents of a book.

Daniel Morgan Received on Mon Jul 08 2002 - 10:52:18 CDT